CA Parks Officials Prepare Closure List

One of the many areas of government facing cuts under Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal is the state parks system. The latest round of reductions would mean closures.

Governor Brown’s budget includes $11 million in cuts to parks this fiscal year and $22 million a year in ongoing cuts after that. Roy Stearns with the Department of Parks and recreation said over the past decade, parks have faced tens of millions in cuts.

“And we’ve been skimping and saving and looking for efficiencies and doing some service reductions and partial closures for what, ten years ago and we’ve been kind of attaching band-aids to the budget as we’ve been moving along,” he said.

For example, he said the system has fewer employees today than it did in the 1980s. Stearns said they’re currently developing a list of state parks that can be closed partially or fully if lawmakers adopt Gov. Brown’s budget proposal.

Nearly every area of government is facing cuts under the governor’s plan to close a $25 billion budget gap, and Stearns said parks must be part of the solution too.